


Taking Chances

by Severina



Series: The Condemnedverse [5]
Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: tamingthemuse, Post Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-04
Updated: 2012-05-04
Packaged: 2017-11-04 19:19:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/397296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shopping for supplies is always an adventure during the apocalypse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking Chances

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's tamingthemuse community, for the prompt 'anathema'. Post Season Two.
> 
> * * *

Daryl doesn't believe in God, and he sure as shit doesn't believe in the afterlife. But if there is such a thing is Heaven, Daryl's pretty damn sure it'd look like a fully stocked, completely untouched wilderness supply store in the middle of the fucking apocalypse.

For a moment all he can do is stand in the doorway, mouth agape, taking it all in. Then he glances at Glenn, sees a look on wonder in his eyes that reminds him of those kids from the dumb holiday specials his ma used to watch, the ones that came down the staircase on Christmas morning to a fir lit up like diamonds and a slew of brightly-wrapped presents. He had his doubts that kids like that actually existed, but he's happy enough to see Glenn mimicking 'em now.

He claps the kid on the arm, can't help grinning back when Glenn turns bug-eyes and goofy smile his way. He's only gone on a couple of runs with the kid before, usually as muscle when the walker population was extra high, and in the past he's always let Glenn take point. One look at that goggle-eyed expression and he knows that this time, he's gonna be calling the shots.

He directs Glenn toward the archery section, heads behind the counter himself. Not much on the shelving, but he knows how this shit works. It only takes him about thirty seconds of poking around under the counter before he finds the crack in the wood, another five seconds to figure out how to work the hidden latch. He comes up with a shitload of handguns, most of 'em with the serials scratched off and not a one of which Uncle Sam would have allowed good ol' Andy of Andy's Wilderness Haven to carry. A couple of AK's. And enough shells to keep them at walker-brain-splattering capacity for months. He's busy loading up his duffel with cartons of the shells when Glenn wanders back, a stack of arrows – real honest to shit factory-made mass-produced motherfuckin' arrows – jutting out from his backpack. 

He eyes the kid approvingly. "Nice," he says.

Glenn surveys the overstuffed bag with a critical eye. "I still think we should bring back at least one of those camping stoves."

"Defense is more important," Daryl counters. "'Sides, ain't nobody around for miles. We come back with a big crew, clear this fucker out in an afternoon."

"I guess," Glenn says. He frowns down at the duffel for long enough that Daryl is actually considering relenting – but he's makin' the damn kid carry the motherfuckin' stove – and then Glenn shrugs, drops the subject of the camping stove in favour of a compromise. "Okay, but we're taking some of those energy bars. And we're still stopping at that convenience store to look for chocolate for Carl."

_Like hell we are_ is on the tip of Daryl's tongue. Gonna be loaded for fuckin' bear with a two mile hike back to where they left the car, and kid thinks they got time to lollygag around in a goddamn five and dime lookin' for treats for the Grimes kid who don't know enough to keep out of harm's way more often than not? He opens his mouth to say just that, then closes it again. His ma didn't raise no fool, and he knows when to pick his battles. Mostly.

He's testing the heft of the bag over one shoulder when--

"Hey," Glenn calls out, "I'm gonna check out the stockroom."

He looks up sharply, does open his mouth then, gets out "WAIT—" and it's enough to make Glenn look over his shoulder as he opens the door, for Glenn's brow to furrow. For the first of the rotting shambling walkers locked away in the storeroom to take a stumbling half-step toward the oblivious kid, one pale emaciated arm sweeping toward him, open mouth gaping wide.

He's got his crossbow up and aimed in one breath, is letting loose an arrow with the next. It's only seconds, but he still has time to call himself ten kinds of fool for not smelling the damn rotting fuckers, time to hope-wish-pray to the god he doesn't believe in that Glenn doesn't move into the arrow's path, time to hold his breath – and then the arrow hits its target, the walker reaching for Glenn stumbles to the side and crashes bonelessly to the ground.

He's vaulting the counter, shouting for Glenn to shut the goddamn door even as Glenn dances back, feet tripping over each other and mouth in a wide open 'o' of shock. But the walker he hit has sprawled half-in and half-out of the room and the rest of them are already pressing forward, surging into the room, staggering into the aisles, blocking the route to the front door. Relentless. Hungry.

He takes out a second walker with a quick stabbing motion through the eye seconds before the thing's teeth would've clamped onto his arm, makes a grab for the kid to pull him toward the front door and the parking lot and safety, such as it is. There's at least half a dozen of the things between them and the aisles are close and tight and it ain't good, it's a world of ain't good right now, but he don't give a shit, he came along on this damn run to protect the kid, to take care of Glenn and he's getting him out and—

"Service door!" Glenn is shouting, resisting the pull on his sleeve, and Daryl blinks past the red haze in his brain. 

Glenn's machete is in his hand and he hacks out one-handed at the walker that's closest, clips it on the chin with a hard enough blow to send it reeling back. Daryl's hands have been doing their own work on instinct, two more of them down in a splatter of blackish gore and shattered bone, and in the space of a heartbeat there's a path cleared to the back door that Glenn spotted. 

They sprint.

The sunlight is dazzling after the dimness of the store. The stench of decay is worse.

The walkers are staggering from the treeline, a dozen already on the cracked and peeling asphalt of the back lot. They're fresh, which means they're fast, and Daryl frantically scans the area around the strip mall, tries to find a safe spot to make a stand, anywhere. There is nothing but open ground and the rusting hulk of a sedan with out-of-state plates. 

"UP!" Glenn shouts.

Daryl's gaze follows Glenn's, and he feels his eyes grow wide. "You popped a screw loose or somethin'?"

Glenn just stares at him, slinging the bag – how the hell did he keep hold of his goddamn backpack in that mess? – quickly over his shoulder and reaching for the drainpipe. He gives it a rattle, winces just slightly and then is digging his toes into the rough brick, pulling his body up the pipe. In seconds he's ten feet off the ground, and the pipe's only rattling a little.

"Come ON," Glenn yells.

Daryl scrubs his hand over his jaw, considering. He left eighteen behind a long time ago, and he wasn't never the limber type even in his youth – too solid and bulky for that, gettin' where he needed to go more through brute determination than any kind of innate athleticism. 'Sides, the higher Glenn gets the more he can see the pipe shivering in its moorings, and he's got a lot more body weight than the damn kid. 

"Jesus Christ, what are you waiting for, an engraved invitation? Get your ass up here!" Glenn shouts.

The walkers are closer now, snarling and snapping, but Daryl ignores them for the moment, tips back his head. The kid is almost at the roof line, looking over his shoulder at Daryl on the ground. The words are brave, but he can hear the quaver in Glenn's voice, the fear just below the surface. Can see the dread in those wide eyes. It's that that decides him.

"Shit," he mutters. 

It's ungainly and awkward, but he makes it out of walker-chomping range with a good five seconds to spare.

* * *

"Fuck!"

Daryl can't stop pacing. Can't stop stalking from one edge of the roof to the other. Can't stop gritting his teeth, pawing at his chin, trying not to scream, not to lash out. 

"Fuck!" he says again. "Stupid! Should've fuckin' known, should've smelled those rotting bastards—"

"Dude, you couldn't have… you do realize we're _covered_ in walker from those geeks on the interstate, right? Not to mention that the stench is pretty much stitched into our clothing by now anyway? I mean, how could you have—"

"Shut the fuck up."

He's vaguely aware of Glenn's eyebrows shooting up, of Glenn blinking up at him from where he sits cross-legged on the roof, but he can't… he can't fucking deal with that right now, not with his mind goin' eight thousand miles a minute. Not when he's remembering the choices he's made, and how each one of 'em seems to have led him inexorably to this place.

Because they are trapped here. All because he didn't think, didn't use the goddamn senses he was born with and the ones that were beaten into his skin by his old man and by Merle, and now he is trapped – trapped on a gravel roof under the blazing Atlanta sun, and there might not be no handcuffs and there might not be no God but this still sure as hell feels like some divine retribution.

He chews on his lip and covers his head with his hands and tries to block out the sound of Merle laughin' his ass off inside his brain.

"Look," Glenn says. Daryl doesn't know how much time has passed, only that the walkers are still moaning and Glenn has stretched out his legs, is leaning back on his elbows with his face turned up to the sun. "When we don't come back in a few hours, they'll send someone out looking for us," he says reasonably. "We've just gotta sit tight 'til then."

"Risk some more lives for our sorry asses," he mutters. His voice sounds raw even to his own ears. "Fuckin' dumb."

"Hey, that's what we do. Me with Rick in Atlanta. You with me and the Vatos," he says pointedly.

Daryl still remembers Glenn's voice cracking as he screamed his name when the gangbangers snatched him, remembers flinging himself against the fence, watching Glenn struggle and panic and not being able to reach him. Not being fast enough. He still sometimes wakes up from dreams where he didn't get the kid back, where the gang gutted him and left him for dead, or tossed him from that roof like a sack of potatoes, or he fought his way through to Glenn only to find him turned, head lolling loosely on his neck and milky-white eyes blindly reaching for him, black-rimmed mouth open to feed.

That was the turning point, he realizes. The first choice. To join Rick and T-Dog in goin' to the rescue of some scrawny Asian kid he barely knew, abandoning the search for his brother before it barely began. The second choice – following the group back to the camp – led to the next, staying to take care of their dead, seein' the tears standing out in the kid's eyes and caving like a goddamn pussy, doin' what Glenn wanted instead of takin' the easy way out and burning the lot of them. After that, there was no turning back.

He gave up on Merle. Chose the group – chose Glenn – over his own brother. 

The guilt still eats at him, and maybe all those choices did lead him here. But looking over at Glenn, he still can't really say it was the wrong thing to do.

He shakes his head, slumps down across from the kid on the gravel. Dig his fingers into the loose stone. 

"So," Glenn says into the silence, "we have some time to kill."

"Looks like."

"We could… talk?"

He talks to the kid plenty. They been on supply runs together before, mapped out entrance and exit strategies. Even took the kid hunting once. Sat around the fire pit of a night or two with the others, shootin' the shit. He'd tell his own tales, some of 'em tall, some of 'em not, try to make Glenn smile. Sure, they've talked a lot. So Daryl has no idea why now, suddenly, he has no idea what to say. He shrugs instead of answering, squints and tries to think of something to free up his tongue.

"We could talk about books," Glenn suggests. "Movies? Lemme guess, you're a Road Warrior fan. Mad Max?"

"Was okay," he mutters.

"Robocop? Old school, right?"

Daryl shrugs.

"Terminator. You gotta be an Arnie fan."

Daryl hazily remembers a drive-in, gunfire blasting on the big screen and Merle raisin' a ruckus with the punks in the next car, security comin' down on them and fists flying. "The second one was good," he says.

"Sure, T2 was fine. But the original Terminator is a classic."

Daryl shrugs. "I liked the second one better."

Glenn takes a breath, looks like he's got a lot to say, then lets it out in a huff of air. "You know what, I spent way too many hours debating this when I should have been working on my psych paper to ever go back there again. Not gonna happen. That subject is anathema to me." Glenn leans back on his elbows. "That means—"

"I know what it means," Daryl snaps. "Country don't equal dumb."

"Right," Glenn says after a moment. "You're right. I'm sorry."

Daryl brushes the gravel dust from his palms onto the front of his jeans, gets to his feet to peer over the edge of the roof and stare blindly down at the busted up lot. 

He can't blame the kid, not really. Been the same thing all his life. Missed too much school, got in too much trouble when he was there. Nobody bothered with him, teachers or students, 'cause everybody knew that the Dixons were never gonna amount to anything anyway. Was just easier to stay slumped in the back row, keep his head down unless he'd needed to thump someone. The fact that he actually picked up on shit passed everybody on by, from his old man to the teachers to the other kids. When he dropped out at sixteen it wasn't no big surprise, and nobody guessed that he fuckin' hated having to do it, hated that the old man spent half his pension on cheap hooch and the other half on whatever floozy was workin' the bar that month, hated that Merle was off on his first stint in GSP, hated that payin' the mortgage fell on his shoulders. 

Nah, it ain't the kid's fault. 

"Any change?" Glenn asks quietly from behind him.

Daryl blinks, focuses on the milling bodies. "A few of 'em are movin' off," he answers. He turns back, folds his legs beneath him and sits back down. "Most of 'em are still sniffin' around the door like bitches in heat."

Glenn slumps back. "Don't suppose you've got a deck of cards in that pocket with the lock picking tools?"

"No such luck, kid."

Glenn sighs, glances to the side and chews on his lip. When he looks back, there's a gleam in his eye that Daryl ain't sure he likes.

"We could play I've Never," Glenn suggests.

"I've never what?"

Glenn smiles. "Okay, listen. The point is to say something that you've never done, but it should be something that you hope your opponent HAS done. If he has, he has to give you a penny."

"Don't got any pennies."

"Then we can play for stones, it doesn't matter."

"What's the point? 

He swears the kid is going to roll his eyes. "The _point_ ," Glenn says again, "is to get as many of your opponents stones as you can. Think of as many things as you can that he's done that you haven't."

Daryl huffs out a breath. "Yeah, thanks Korea, I ain't retarded. What's the goddamn _point_? What do I win when I kick your scrawny ass?"

Glenn straightens his back, blinks over at him. "A wager?"

"Ain't no _point_ otherwise."

"Fine," Glenn agrees. "Loser does the winner's chores for a week."

"Send you out huntin' for game? Seems to me like starvin' to death when you come home empty handed ain't a very good prize."

Glenn looks like he's going to argue the point, probably make a claim that that ain't gonna happen on account of how he's gonna win, but he apparently thinks better of it. "Okay. I've got something better."

Daryl crosses his arms. "Lay it on me."

"Loser is the winner's slave for a week. He has to do whatever the winner wants. Fetch him his meals, darn his damn socks, take his turn at watch." He smiles and adds pointedly, "Go with him on scavenging raids."

Daryl can't help it, his lips quirk just a little. "Pretty sure of yourself there, kid."

Glenn raises a brow. "Chicken?"

Daryl lifts his chin. "You go first."

With a grin, Glenn quickly counts out a pile of twenty stones each, then sets back on his haunches. "Okay, he says. "I've never shot a walker in the head with a crossbow."

Daryl smirks and tosses the first stone toward Glenn before saying, "I've never got my stupid ass kidnapped by a bunch of low-rent gangbangers."

"Okay technically they weren't gangbangers," Glenn says as he hands over his first stone, "but I'll give you that one. And I've never ridden a motorcycle."

Daryl hands over his stone. "I've never saved a guy in a tank."

Stone. "I've never killed a squirrel."

Daryl squints. "Road kill?"

"Nope," Glenn insists. "Once crashed my dad's Malibu avoiding a muskrat, though."

Daryl shakes his head, reluctantly hands over his stone. "I've never made out with a farmer's daughter," he says.

He doesn't know what compels him to say it. But it's out before he can stop it, can't push it back down and take it back, and Glenn's face gets red and his eyes dart to the dirty gravel. He tosses in his stone without looking up. Daryl squints and looks toward the corner of the roof where a drift of leaves have gathered and the silence hangs in the air and he wonders why he couldn't just let one good thing happen this afternoon without fucking it all up. Just one.

Then Glenn pushes his hat off his head, swipes a palm through his sweaty hair and resets the cap and looks at him, stares at him until Daryl can't study those leaves anymore, has to turn back and meet his eyes and pretend he don't care that Glenn's mackin' on Maggie, pretend he don't care that maybe Glenn _loves_ Maggie.

"Okay, "Glenn declares, "no more picking stuff we know is true. It's my turn. And I've never… been on a roller coaster."

"You shittin' me?" Daryl says. "Jesus, one time, Merle and me went up to the fair outside Turin, had this old roller coaster, swear the thing was held together with spit and duct tape. We're halfway up the top, and my brother gets it into his head that he's gonna do a handstand. I grab onto his belt, nearly rip his jeans in fuckin' two, and he ends up pullin' me up with him. Shit, we rode the second half of that thing standin' up. Got a hell of a case of whiplash." 

He scrubs a hand over his jaw, can still remember the smile on Merle's face. He can almost feel the wind whipping through his hair, the safety bar pressing into his shins hard enough to bruise. The coaster operator cursin' up a storm when they finally pulled in. How fast his heart had been beating. 

He looks up to see Glenn shaking his head, his expression half amused and half horrified. Daryl shrugs. "Was kind of worth it." 

"Yeah well," Glenn says, "you're a little bit crazy. You do know that, right?"

"Just a little bit?"

"Yup," Glenn says confidently. "The only one you've got fooled at this point is Beth, and that's only because she stuck to the house all the time. By the way, give me a stone."

"Shit," Daryl mutters. 

"Your turn."

Daryl lets his hand run over his pile of stones, considering. He chews at the inside of his cheek. It's a stupid goddamn confession, and he don't even know why he's thinkin' about giving it up. But now it's in his head, and he can't think of anything else. "I've never… danced," he finally says.

When Glenn doesn't respond, he's forced to look up.

"Do you mean," Glenn starts hesitantly, "like in a recital, or—"

Daryl shifts uncomfortably. "I mean like danced."

Glenn opens his mouth, and Daryl can feel his whole body tense. Ain't never should have brought it up. It wasn't like he was one of those jerkwads standin' on the sidelines, too fucked up to take a pretty girl's hand. He never went to those school dances is all. He never let no one drag him onto the dance floor in the little roadside shacks Merle favoured either, always claimed he had to piss or needed another beer. Managed to avoid it his whole damn life. 

He glares, waits for the incredulous look to appear on Glenn's face, waits for the kid to say something. But Glenn just shrugs and tosses in his stone.

Glenn only gains a single stone to his two in the next three rounds. And for a moment, or even two or three – when Glenn is smiling over at him in the aftermath of some stupid story of his about his ma's homemade pop-tarts, or when he has to practically stuff his hand in his mouth to smother his laughter at Glenn's pizza delivery misadventures – he almost forgets that the goddamn apocalypse happened at all. He leans back on his elbows, shuts his eyes, and listens to the sound of Glenn's voice… and he can almost believe that there's no such thing as walkers, no such thing as a camp where nobody has enough food in their stomachs and little girls go missing and turn up worse than dead. No such thing as leaky motel roofs or watches in the night or farmer's daughters.

Glenn shifts onto his side. "My turn," he says.

Daryl nods, is just turning his head to look at the kid when Glenn opens his mouth again.

"I've never been to prison," Glenn says.

And just like that it doesn't matter, all the goodwill built up evaporated like smoke, coz he ain't ever gonna be nothing to the kid but a goddamn redneck hick, and the kid ain't ever gonna be able to look past the surface, and it ain't like he planned it but the careful little pile of stones gets scattered when he lurches to his feet.

"Hey, I'm sor—"

"Fuck you. Chinaman," he spits out.

He looks over the landscape, has the presence of mind to check to see if the noise has caused the walkers to get all riled up again. And sure enough, the few that were starting to wander away have turned back, either at the sound of his raised voice or the scuff of his shoes on the gravel as he stomps back and forth. He stops, tries to take a breath, but the still summer air just clogs in his throat, heating him up even further.

"It was a stupid thing to say."

Daryl snorts, says nothing. Gazes out at the horizon, the parking lot and its lone out-of-stater, the interstate in the distance. Clenches his fists and tries not to think, not to remember. Works his jaw and shoves a hand through his hair and tries to pull the shell back on, pull tight the armour. But it's cracked and damaged now, and it's all the fuckin' kid's fault.

"Sometimes I'm stupid, I open my mouth and shit just… falls out or something. I think I'm being clever and instead I'm just a giant IDIOT and…"

Glenn trails off helplessly. Daryl can feel the kid hovering at his back, feel the heat of his body even with the smouldering humidity pressing down on him, baking his senses. 

He can't have known what it was like. Some rich kid takin' a year off college just 'cause he can. To somebody like that, prison ain't real. It guys with escape plans tattooed on their bodies, prags gettin' branded with lit matches. The reality is keepin' your mouth shut, haulin' wet sheets for six hours a day, constant noise, vermin, the dull monotony of endless grey walls, readin' the same book six times 'cause without it you think you'll go mad. 

"It was just," Glenn tries again, "I felt like we were getting to know each other, you know? And I just thought I'd take a chance, except it was stupid. It's none of my business. It doesn't even _matter_."

Daryl turns around then, and he guesses maybe he ain't glaring no more 'cause the kid lets out a breath, reaches out hesitantly to put a hand lightly on his forearm. Glenn's fingers are warm, and he looks so goddamn contrite that he feels the rage bank down 'til there's only embers left. 

"I'm sorry, okay?"

He don't trust himself to talk just yet, can only manage a clipped nod. But it's enough for Glenn, who releases his grip on his arm, backs away to the spot where they'd spent the last several hours less waiting for rescue and more… he ain't sure what, but _more_. 

Glenn gestures at the scattered stones, shrugs his shoulders. "Look, sit down. I remember the score, we can finish the game. We won't count that one, I miss a turn. Just…" 

He looks away when Glenn turns those big eyes to him and licks his lips nervously, but he feels a tightening in his chest that's got nothing to do with the summer heat.

He drops down to his knees, scrapes a hand through the rough gravel and waits for Glenn to sit down cross-legged across from him and restock their supply of stone tokens. Only then does he look the kid in the eye.

"Just so you know, Jackie Chan," he says. "That subject? Is anathema to me."

"Got it," Glenn answers. He gestures to the haphazard pile of stones before meeting his eyes gravely. "Your turn."

The thought that comes to him is crazy, so he opens his mouth and says it before his good sense has the chance to override his instinct. Daryl decides to take his own chance.

"I never kissed a man," he says.

Glenn tosses in a stone.


End file.
